


Sight

by autumnsolstice9



Series: Justice [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-08-01 04:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16277759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsolstice9/pseuds/autumnsolstice9
Summary: She has spent years trying to be just Hinata. Not the Hyuuga-heiress, not the quiet girl, not the disappointment. Just Hinata.Or: Hinata, history, and the Hyuuga name.





	Sight

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read by itself, but I would recommend reading the previous works to understand the world.
> 
> some hinata history and a lil background :-)

She is three years old when her father first starts training her. He takes her along with a tight hand, leading her to the dojo where he explains his graceful movements and expects her to follow. Her father doesn’t often spend time with her, and she is happier beyond words to be able to spend the day with him.

Happiness, Hinata learns, is fleeting. Her movements are wobbly and unbalanced, every step she takes uncertain. She looks up to read her father’s face, and is met with a stony visage.

“You are Hyuuga,” he tells her after the fifth time she does the kata wrong. His words are cold, harsh in their quietness. He doesn’t yell, but Hinata knows he has never had to. His iciness speaks volumes where his words do not. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, meek and filled with guilt. She has ruined her day with her father, has made him disappointed in her. “I will do better.”

He gives her a curt nod and leaves the dojo, where she remains to practice the routine over and over again until it feels right. Her mother finds her there, hours later, her voice soft and quiet but with all the love her father has never been able to provide.

“Hinata, what are you doing?”

“Practicing,” she replies, running up to her mother, eager to show her all she has learned from her father, “Father says I am Hyuuga so I need to know this. He wasn’t happy earlier, but if I learn this he will be happy!”

Her mother’s face forms a blank mask so quickly, Hinata almost takes a step back, but her mother has always been filled with love and she knows she won’t hurt her.

“Yes,” her mother murmurs, “We are Hyuuga.”

She can’t read her tone, but Hinata is sure that being a Hyuuga is something to be very proud of. She gives her mother a bright smile and clasps the hand reaching out towards her, leaving the dojo behind to go wash up before dinner.

Later that night, her mother kisses her brow and tucks her in to bed. “You are Hyuuga,” she tells her, “But you are Hinata first. I love you.”

It seems silly to Hinata- of course she is Hyuuga and Hinata at the same time, but she doesn’t question her mother. “I love you, too,” she tells her, and ignores the feeling that she’s not quite understanding the situation.

After all, don’t Hyuuga and Hinata mean the same thing?

***  
_Hiashi-sama’s strict because he expects a lot from you._

She has heard it many times before. She heard it from Ko, from Neji, from her uncle Hizashi who now hates her.

Neji is sealed now, and she knows her uncle is angry because of that, but she can’t help but shrink back from his gaze. She is almost four, but she is old enough to know that his fury stems from fear over what will happen to his son. She loves her uncle and hates his pain, and though some part of her is scared, another larger part of her loves him.

That doesn’t stop him from rushing towards her during training one day, and it certainly doesn’t stop her father from activating the seal. She watches as he screams, hears Neji’s voice join in, and realizes that she, too, is screaming.

“You’re hurting him!” she shrieks, terrified as her uncle convulses on the floor. “Stop! Stop it!” Hizashi is still on the floor, still screaming, and Hinata and Neji can only watch. She is shaking, and she is acutely aware of Neji in the same state, but neither of them can tear their eyes away from Hizashi.

When her father finally stops the seal, her uncle falls limp. “Father!” Neji cries, rushing forward. She starts to take a step forward when her father grabs her arm tightly and drags her to another room.

“One day,” he tells her as he pulls her through empty Hyuuga halls, “you may have to activate the seal.”

“No,” she whispers, “I don’t want to.”

When her father stops his long strides, Hinata stiffens. He looks down at her, gaze as fierce as she can remember. “Do not defy me, Hinata, or one day you may receive the seal as well,” he says through clenched teeth.

She remembers her uncle on the floor, she remembers watching Neji get branded, she remembers screams. _No,_ she wants to tell him, _I will never hurt them. The seal is wrong._

Instead, she holds her tongue and bows her head to look at the floor. Her father clicks his tongue beside her and continues his powerful walk while Hinata struggles to keep up. When he deposits her in their house, in the safety of her mother’s arms, she tries to still her shakes. 

“What’s the matter, Hinata?” her mother asks, running her fingers through her hair.

She can’t make herself answer. Instead, she stares at the floor and pokes her fingers together. Her mother grabs her arms, gently, always light, loving touches with Hinata, and examines the bruise now forming on her wrist.

At this Hinata looks up, and the expression on her mother’s face is unreadable but familiar. She is pulled into a hug

“Being a Hyuuga,” her mother tells her, her voice a quiet strength, “is a glorious burden. We can see everything but we miss so much.”

“I don’t want to miss anything,” she shakily says. 

“Hyuuga are destined to miss the most important things. Good thing you are Hinata.” Her mother ruffles her hair, and Hinata still doesn’t understand what her mother means when she says Hyuuga and Hinata are different, but she doesn’t question it.

At dinner that night, she ignores her father’s gaze and doesn’t speak except to ask for more rice.

***

She is five when he first hits her. Her mother’s belly is large, and Hinata has been excited to meet her new sibling. At dinner, her father has spoken of his excitement for a son, but Hinata’s mother says they don’t know if the baby will be a boy or a girl.

When her mother goes into labor, the entire Hyuuga household is a flurry of people running to and fro, getting whatever is needed for the new baby. Hinata waits in her house with Ko, and when her father finally returns, she expects to hear news of her mother and new sibling.

“Come,” her father instructs, leading her to the dojo, “We will train.”

This training is tougher than the ones before- her father usually makes sure not to hit her too hard, and the bruises never last more than a day.

This time, he isn’t holding back as he smacks her across the floor. She wants to lay down, to curl into a ball and ignore the world, but that would displease him, and he already seems angry. She rises again, her body stinging from the hit and her crash-land, and forms the gentle fist style once more.

After all, she is Hyuuga, and Hinata just wants to please her father.

They keep going, and she continues to hit the floor.

He doesn’t stop until she spits blood out, and then his pinched expression seems to smooth out. He leaves the dojo while she is kneeling on the floor, feeling like she is about to vomit.

She sees his long legs come back, moments later, anger in his footsteps, and Hinata wants to cower away. “I’m sorry,” she tells him, glancing at the floor so she won’t have to see his fury, “I’m sorry.”

“Hinata,” he says, placing a hand on her shoulder, “What are you apologizing for?”

At this, she looks up, and it takes her a second to realize that this is Ko and not her father. Tears well in her eyes, spilling over, and her hands shake when she clasps them together in front of her as a sign of respect. She is Hyuuga, and she can see everything, but she chooses to ignore the purple and blue bruises on her arms. “I- I- I made father unhappy,” she sobs, “I don’t know w-w-what I did.”

Her guard pulls her in for a hug, and she is taken back by surprise. Only her mother has hugged her before, and she suddenly wants to see her mother and her new sibling, so she asks to do so.

“Oh, Hinata,” Ko says in barely a whisper, “Your mother is gone.”

She doesn’t understand. Where did her mother go? She wouldn’t just leave, not without Hinata. She starts crying harder, and her guard takes her hand and leads her out of the dojo and towards the room Hinata saw her mother enter hours beforehand.

“This,” he tells her as they approach a bundle of blankets, “is your new sister, Hanabi.”

Hinata looks into the milky eyes of her new sister, and she is so happy to no longer be alone that she almost forgets everything about her father. She reaches down towards the blanket, lightly touching Hanabi’s hand, and smiles when her sister grabs her finger.

She decides that she loves this baby, and will protect her from their father and teach her how to be kind like their mother.

Days later, her father tells her to get dressed for her mother’s funeral. Hinata is a Hyuuga and does not cry when they lower her mother into the ground, and she does not reach for her father’s hand for comfort even when she notices the green seal on her mother’s forehead.

She cries hours later at home in her bedroom, not as a Hyuuga losing a clan member, but as Hinata losing her mother. She has no mother now, she realizes.

Hanabi has no mother now, too.

Hinata vows to love her as well as her mother loved her.

***

She has no friends at the academy, and Iruka-sensei yells a lot, but she doesn’t mind. It’s better than going home to her father’s thunderous silence. She knows the other kids think she’s weird and gloomy, but Shino Aburame sits with her at lunch sometimes and Kiba’s ninken, Akamaru, licks her fingers on days she feels fragile. 

She never approaches Naruto, but she sees him sit on the swing at lunch. Sometimes they make eye contact, both of them seeking people to talk to, but she always looks away.

He’s like the sun and she wants to talk to him, to say something, but she is too nervous to talk to anyone for fear that they’ll be displeased like her father is.

When Iruka-sensei does a lesson on kekkei genkai’s, she knows people will stare at her byakugan white eyes. Iruka-sensei asks her if she is willing to demonstrate her byakugan, and her breath catches in her throat. Her father tells her that her byakugan is weak, and she is nervous that the class will see her for what she is: a Hyuuga failure.

All eyes are on her, and she takes a deep, shuddering breath before activating it. Everyone is watching her, and she is waiting for them to announce how weak she is, but instead she’s met with a chorus of “ooh’s” and “aah’s” and a “that’s awesome!” from Kiba.

At lunch that day, Shino sits with her in silence. When they have to go in to leave, he calls her back. “Hinata, you seem like a formidable opponent. Your byakugan gives you impressive abilities. I would like to spar some day.”

It’s the first time she’s heard him speak, and she can feel her cheeks heat up with her blush. “Ah yes, I w-would like that v-very much! T-thank you!”

Kiba approaches her after class. “Hey! Your eyes are freaky!” he announces, and Hinata immediately wants to flee to home. Akamaru yips, and Kiba scratches his head. “Yeah, Akamaru is right, that came out wrong! They’re really freaky, but in a cool way! You’re probably super strong like my sister and mom with a kekkei genkai like that!”

“Thank you,” she says, and smiles when Akamaru lets her pet his silky fur.

When genin teams are announced, she has no complaints when Shino and Kiba are placed on a team with her.

***

At 12, with blood spewing from her mouth at the chuunin exams, Neji glaring at her from across the arena, she realizes what her mother meant. Here is Neji, cold and cruel, stuck under the idea that his fate is already defined and that nothing can change it.

She remembers her mother telling her that Hyuuga see everything but miss what is important, and each time Hinata collapses, she realizes that she is a Hyuuga failure. Every time she rises, she knows she is proud of herself.

Her heart stops with the thought that the Hyuuga are wrong.

They are so, so wrong if they have resulted in the hate residing in Neji.

She wakes up to a hospital room with no family in it.

Scratch that, she wakes up to a hospital room with her family in everything but words waiting for her. Kurenai, Kiba, and Shino are in chairs, Akamaru sleeping by her feet.

She is Hinata before she is Hyuuga, she is Yuuhi more than she is Hyuuga, and she loves before she condemns people to cursed seals. Kurenai strokes her hair, and Hinata smiles.

***

_“I want to be strong like my father, and kind like my mother!”_

Hinata wanders through the Land of Fire, her hitai-ate proclaiming her a missing-nin. She runs, and fights, and runs some more. She bleeds and gets bruised, but each time someone thinks they have beaten her she gets back up.

She is Hinata. She will always get back up if it means her goal will be met.

She kills and she cries, and she thinks of Hanabi and Neji, of her team. She remembers her uncle, who wanted freedom for his son, and her mother who wanted her to see what other Hyuuga could not.

She is kind like her mother, but she will be stronger than her father.

At nights when the cold settles into her skin, she stays warm with the thought of getting rid of the seal.

She has spent years trying to be just Hinata. Not the Hyuuga-heiress, not the quiet girl, not the disappointment. Just Hinata.

Hinata craves justice.

**Author's Note:**

> hiashi die challenge!


End file.
